Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers by Andrew, Elizabeth Wheeler, Bushnell, Katharine Caroline - CHAPTER 16.

Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

CHAPTER 16.

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.

During the incumbency of a certain Mayor of San Francisco a surprising condition of things was brought into existence. There was a large tract of land in the heart of Chinatown owned by an American family, relatives, it is declared, of said Mayor, the passages entering which were deliberately blocked by gates, so as to stop all entrance excepting to patrons of the place. This section lay between Dupont and Stockton, Jackson and Pacific streets, and included within its enclosure Baker and New World alleys, connecting Dupont street with Sullivan Place, which divided this tract in two. Gates were erected at the entrance of the two alleys on Dupont street, and two gates blocked the entrance to Sullivan Place, at the end opening upon Pacific street. Within this region, both above and below ground, were housed numbers of Chinese slave girls, particularly in Baker alley, where, it is said, were placed the young girls of tender years, generally about fifteen years old, when first brought over the water, or when first initiated into brothel slavery, having served their apprenticeship as domestic slaves. We are informed that fully seven-tenths of the domestic slave girls found in Chinese homes in America--and every well-to-do Chinese family (except Christians) keeps at least one or two slaves--end their lives in immorality. Some of them when they become old enough are seized by their masters as concubines, others are sent to the brothels. Reports of conditions at Hong Kong which we have already quoted, speak of the special celebration of the entrance of a virgin into prostitution, and the high prices paid by patrons for this initiation, but leave it obscure as to the nationality of the men who initiate girls into the life of a brothel slave. But Chinese in San Francisco do not hesitate to make the charge that Chinamen recoil, through moral sense or superstition, from deflowering a virgin, and that this horrible privilege is purchased at a special price by the white, not the yellow patrons of Chinese houses of ill-fame. Baker alley has probably been the scene of more terrible brutality of this sort than any other part of San Francisco. Before the rubbish was cleared away, in the oasis of a broad desert of ashes in the burned city, we visited this region, and found carpenters busy at the work of reconstructing brothels. The slave pen was existent again, and we entered the gateway leading to it and gazed upon the rapidly growing structures within. Two white men of a class called “Watch-dogs,” in the days before the fire, occupied a sort of look-out and kept guard, more especially upon the entrance to Baker alley. This region, so largely of American manufacture, like other sections of San Francisco's Chinatown, was displayed, by means of Chinatown guides for pay to tourists, who were led to believe that they were looking upon _Chinese_ views of life. The truth is, as we have shown in previous chapters, a display of vice is practically unknown in regions of China uninfluenced by Western civilization. Almost any wicked man, any tourist who would pay well, man or woman, could enter this place. The “Watch-dogs” were kept merely to prevent the entrance of mission workers to rescue slaves, and these “Watch-dogs” were, and always are, American, or, at least European men, not Chinese.

There were more “Watch-dogs” than those about Sullivan Place, before the earthquake in San Francisco,--they were to be found in many parts, always for the one purpose,--to resist interference with the enforcement of brothel slavery upon Chinese women. American men undertook this part of the business, because a certain timidity in the Chinese character when dealing with American women, and a fear of arousing race-prejudice, unfitted the Chinaman for coping with the American women,--Miss Culbertson, the pioneer, now sainted, Miss Lake, Miss Cameron and Miss Davis, who have fought their brave battles for many years, to deliver the captives from the hand of the spoilers, often at the risk of life, unaided for the most part, unappreciated and unsympathized with, by a guiltily ignorant Christian public, and too often persecuted by corrupt officials. Yet they have never stood alone, but have always had the presence of their Master, and the sympathetic co-operation of a few ardent supporters,--Christian women, lawyers, magistrates, and other officials.

One of the “Watch-dogs” struck Miss Lake on one occasion. On another, a “Watch-dog” went boldly up to two policemen to whom a fugitive slave had appealed for help, seized his prey, and without resistance from the policemen, carried her bodily back to slavery along the public street, in view of many spectators. At another time several of them rushed in upon a scene of rescue, overcame the police officer, and hurled him down stairs, dealt in the same manner with some men in the rescue party, and then turned upon the missionary and would have subjected her to the same treatment. She said firmly: “Do not lay a hand upon me! I will go out by myself,” and overawed, they allowed her to walk out untouched through their midst into fresh air and to safety. It is hardly necessary to add that the missionary did not, on this occasion, get the poor slave.

We have already said, but it bears repeating, that white men as well as Chinese, resort to these slaves. One rescued girl told of another captive, bound by night to her bed and to her unwilling task. Think of the education of the youths of San Francisco in such schools of vice as this,--what a menace they must necessarily become to the women of their own family and acquaintance! A young woman managed to get a request for help sent to a rescue worker. The missionary responded by a carefully arranged plot for the identification of the girl. It included the understanding that when the rescuer with the officer should enter the place, she was to have in her hands, and to raise to her lips a handkerchief which the missionary had managed to get conveyed to her. They entered, saw her with the handkerchief held to her face, at the little soliciting window, but the poor girl had endured so much that at the sight of friends she lost her nerve and presence of mind, fluttered her handkerchief, and cried out, “Oh, teacher!” Alas! a locked door still separated her from her rescuers, and the plot was exposed. She was dragged back, and became lost to the rescue party. Other girls who escaped from the den afterwards told of the rest of the scene. Kick upon kick fell upon her poor little body, and the enraged owner of the brothel never ceased until she was dead and mashed almost to a jelly before the eyes of the other inmates, to teach them a lesson of warning against trying to escape. Let us not mourn. It was better so than to have been left alive unrescued. The pity is that the keepers and the “Watch-dogs” hold them alive to their task as long as they do. The angels of heaven, God's rescue party, are not far off from such victims, nor His angels of wrath and vengeance from such inhuman fiends. We wonder how many of the little slaves were lifted up into a better life than this by the merciful earthquake; and how many of their masters and outragers saw hell gape and themselves swallowed up in the horrible earthquake,--God's deliverance or God's judgment,--according to the character of the individual.

When the missionary enters a den, and by means of some carefully devised scheme identifies the girl who has had conveyed to the missionary her desire to be rescued, and attempts to take the girl, she often screams for help, kicks, fights, bites, scratches, spits, and sometimes swears at her liberator, but often is secretly clutching with almost a death-grip the rescuer's hand. She will sometimes fight at being thrust through the doorway into the street, calling lustily for help, but whisper to the missionary, “Tell the officer to carry me out.” When once, in spite of the feigned struggle, she is carried outside, and her pursuers are well behind in the chase, the ruse is cast aside, and it becomes a race for dear life between the rescuer and the rescued to make the city of refuge,--the mission home,--and generally the fugitive gets there first. Once a rescue worker found her girl secreted with four others in a loft, to which she had been removed because the brothel-keeper feared an attempt at rescue. She was so carefully guarded and watched that the poor thing dared not signify to the missionary that she was the one who wished to be taken, and all five struggled with equal apparent fierceness against rescue. What was the missionary to do! She lifted her heart in the despairing cry, “Oh, God, if ever you heard a human prayer and answered it, for Christ's sake hear me now! Tell me which one to take!” She instantly seized one of them, who fought savagely, and bit and scratched and swore. Out she went with her, and all the way to the mission the girl abused her terribly. But the instant the door closed behind them and they were safe inside the home, she fell to the floor, seized her deliverer's feet and bathed them with her tears, crying bitterly as she said: “Oh, forgive me, forgive me! You know I did not mean it, but it was the only way to do to be safe.” God had guided aright. No mistake had been made in the choice. Do you believe God did that, reader? Try such heroic work for yourself, and you will find a miracle-working God who seldom reveals His identity to the self-indulgent. That rescued girl has turned out to be a wonder of grace and of natural gifts, and is pursuing a professional career now, after fine opportunities in training. It is worth while to save such material, even from a slave-pen; such as she enrich the community in which they live.

This slave-trade could not go on between Hong Kong and the United States but for the white men who are in it, one way or another. White lawyers defend the traffickers in court, and secure the return of slaves by writ of habeas corpus, or by means of false accusations of various sorts, such as of stealing. It is significant that, with rare exceptions, the policemen seem not to have been trusted with definite information as to the place about to be searched or raided, when told off to accompany a rescue party, lest word be sent ahead, allowing a chance to spirit away the girl for whom search is instituted. American men are said to go all the way to Hong Kong to get girls and smuggle them into the country, as better able to cope with the strict immigration laws than Chinese. Sometimes they go a long way around to get a girl into San Francisco,--by Victoria, B.C., through Mexico and El Paso (Texas), and by other routes. But the price paid for the slaves assures a good profit to the traders. Since the laws against Chinese immigration became more stringent, the market price of these slaves has risen to three thousand dollars, while the more beautiful ones bring a much higher price. Judges, lawyers, seafaring men, hirelings of the Immigration Bureau, Chinatown guides, “Watch-dogs,” officials and policemen, have all been accused of having imbrued their hands at different times in the slaughter of the virtue of Chinese women through this wretched slave business, besides the white patrons of the Chinese slave-pens. But probably none are so guilty of complicity as the property-owners, who build the places for housing the slaves, and make enormous profits in the business.

There seems to be a misapprehension as to the status of these Chinese prostitutes, to which the mind recurs again and again, in spite of careful explanations. Some imagine that only those who are rescued, or at least those who have managed to convey word to the missionaries that they desire to be rescued, are the literal slaves, and that those left behind are free. Such is not the case. We have already shown that nearly all the Chinese prostitutes at Singapore and at Hong Kong are literal slaves, the only exception being, in fact, a small percentage (estimated at 10 per cent by the Chinese merchants at Hong Kong), composed almost entirely of women who have mortgaged their own bodies, or who have been thus mortgaged by relatives, for a limited time in payment for a debt, and who, at the end of the stated time, are generally set free, though sometimes they find themselves in a trap from which there is no escape. It is through the misfortune of debt, and in countries where Chinese women are cheap, that this mortgaging of the person takes place. Such conditions do not surround Chinese women in America, so that this form of service in houses of ill-fame must be correspondingly rare, and this is according to the testimony of the missionaries. For this reason, therefore, we may rule out the temporary servitude, and assert without fear of contradiction from those who understand the situation, that practically all the Chinese prostitutes in the United States are literal slaves. Some are _willing_ slaves, some _unwilling_; and a small fraction of the unwilling slaves have managed by stroke of good fortune, and because of unusual courage, to get a request conveyed to a mission, and thus in some instances they have secured their freedom. But not all who have appealed for help have been rescued, for they cannot always be found upon search, and often, when they have been found and their cases brought up in court, they have been again consigned to the care of their former owners because courage has failed, and they have refused in open court to acknowledge that they wished to go free. One girl who desired to escape fell under suspicion, and her master decided to remove her to Watsonville, and so defeat her rescue. At the San Francisco Ferry Station she made a dash for liberty, pursued by the two men who had her in charge, and ran to a policeman, handing him a crumpled piece of paper, which proved to be a note that a missionary had placed in her hand when she landed in America. The officer could not read the note, in its old and crumpled condition, but divining its nature he hailed a cab and drove with the girl straight to the mission door, where she was welcomed.

There were at least five hundred Chinese brothel slaves in San Francisco before its destruction, and none in Oakland up to that time. Since the calamity, there have been many in Oakland. They have been estimated at as high a figure as 300, and must have numbered until quite recently at least 150. The frontispiece represents a structure erected for their housing. This building is three stories high, and occupies every foot of one-half square. It contains more than 600 rooms, and is built throughout of rough boards, one inch thick, on flimsy beams and studding. It is unlathed and unplastered, a veritable fire-trap, within four blocks of the County Court House. It could never have passed inspection had it been erected for _decent_ purposes. When the photograph was taken the building was not completed. A row of shops has been added at the left, over which is a large Chinese theatre. A respectable Chinese man of literary pursuits informed us that the theatre was “to attract custom there.” A very broad stairway, scarcely less imposing than the front entrance to the theatre, leads down into the alley, and to the brothel. The seats for women in the theatre are reached by a special door leading to this alley. The heart of this building is approached through “Washington Place,” an alley, at the entrance of which one encounters a sign, “No White Men Admitted Here, Only Chinese.” This notice, which has been put up at the entrance of Oriental brothels in Chinatown, has been ordered by the Chief of Police, it is claimed, to prohibit Americans associating with Orientals in vice, so as to prevent demoralization and race quarrels. We do not dispute the motive, but the _effect_ is, that those who would work for the rescue of slaves are kept at a distance, and no one who is likely to make a complaint against abuses and law-breaking can approach the place without permission from the police, which gives ample opportunity for getting everything objectionable out of sight. As far as prevention of the commingling of the different races is concerned, that may be hindered at certain points, but American men are on the inside track here, as to making money through these slaves. The building has been erected and is owned by Americans, and one man of European name is a partner in the immediate management of the place. On our first visit to this building we were informed on reliable information that there were 125 Japanese and over 50 Chinese girls in the place, and 100 more were expected to arrive within a few days. Besides these, there are also Chinese slaves in almost every Chinese settlement throughout the United States. In California, they are to be found largely at San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Jose, Watsonville, Monterey and Los Angeles. Willing or unwilling, the Chinese prostitute is none the less a slave, bought and sold at pleasure from one to another, earning wealth for others and never for herself. Recently, three girls who were taken from a den in San Francisco, declared that they had been sold for three thousand dollars apiece to the keeper, and that they were flogged when their earnings for the keeper fell below three hundred dollars each a month. If the prostitute were not willing to be a slave, that would not procure her liberty,--it would only procure her more abuse than the willing slave. On the ship coming over, the slaves are well drilled in their task on arrival, of swearing themselves into slavery, and well threatened if they dare to disobey. Then they are packed with stories as to the terrible character of Americans, particularly the rescue workers. One Chinese girl concluded she would take all the abuse of the rescue home rather than forego a chance for liberty, though she knew of no reason to disbelieve the fearful warnings she had received. On the first night of her arrival she did not undress nor go to bed when the other girls retired. Someone found her standing about, and asked her why she was not off for bed. She replied pathetically: “I am waiting for my beating.” She had been informed that it was in that fashion all the girls were put to bed each night. At a very conservative estimate, there are not less than one thousand Chinese brothel slaves in California alone, besides those in the Chinese settlements all over the United States. When children are born to Chinese prostitutes, they are seized by the brothel keepers as their own property, the girls being sold into domestic slavery to be passed on into brothel slavery at the age of about 15, and the boy babies sold for a good price--several hundred dollars--to become “adopted” sons. Very many Chinese men of the United States secure their wives by purchase from brothels, and as a consequence often have no children by them, hence the high value of a child who can be purchased for a son. The real wife and family of the Chinese man generally remain in China, the matrimonial relations of the man in America being wholly spurious. This admixture of the brothel element with all Chinese home life in the United States makes this country very undesirable as a residence for virtuous Chinese women, and largely discourages the immigration of respectable Chinese wives, whose presence with their husbands might greatly tend to the uplifting of the entire Chinese community.

There are probably as many domestic slaves as brothel slaves among the Chinese of the United States. Every well-to-do heathen Chinese family keeps a slave or two, and the rich Chinese keep a large number. Polygamy is practiced, as at Hong Kong, to a larger extent than prevails generally in China, and it is not uncommon to find a Chinese in California with from five to seven concubines. The Chinese man in the United States takes his domestic slave, if he wishes, for a concubine, or sells his concubines into brothel slavery, if displeased with them, or wishing to raise a sum of money. It is a burning disgrace to the United States that this polygamy is not stamped out. In one case related to us, a girl was taken from a rescue home by a writ of habeas corpus, and returned by the judge to her position as second wife of a Chinaman.

During President Hayes' administration, Mr. D.H. Bailey, United States Consul-General at Shanghai, sent a message to him relating to Chinese slavery, and the menace to our country from it. He enclosed in his communication a translation of the Chinese laws relating to slavery, which is permitted under certain restrictions in that country. Nothing could exceed their stringency at the point of any resistance on the part of the slave to the condition of servitude. From that set of laws we quote the following:

“If a female slave deserts her master's house she shall be punished with 80 blows.” ... “Whosoever harbours a fugitive wife or slave, knowing them to be fugitives, shall participate equally in their punishment.” ... “A slave guilty of addressing abusive language to his master shall suffer death by being strangled.... If to his master's relations in the first degree he shall be punished with 80 blows and two years' banishment. If to his master's relations in the second degree, the punishment shall be 80 blows. If in the third degree, 70 blows. If in the fourth degree, 60 blows.” “The master or the relations of a master of a guilty slave may ... chastise such slave in any degree short of death, without being liable to punishment. Nevertheless, if a master or his aforesaid relations, in order to correct a disobedient slave or hired servant, should chastise him in a lawful manner on the back of the thighs or on the posteriors, and such slave or hired servant should happen to die, or if he is killed in any other manner accidentally, neither the master nor his aforesaid relations shall be liable to any punishment in consequence thereof.”

"All slaves who are guilty of designedly striking their masters shall, without making any distinctions between principals and accessories, be beheaded.

"All slaves designedly killing their masters, or designedly striking so as to kill their masters, shall suffer death by a slow and painful execution.

"If accidentally killing their masters, they shall suffer death by being strangled.

"If accidentally wounding, they shall suffer 100 blows and perpetual banishment to the distance of 3,000 li (1,000 miles).

“Slaves who are guilty of striking their master's relations in the first degree ... shall be strangled.... All slaves who strike so as to wound such persons shall ... be beheaded.”

The “painful execution” which is the penalty of killing a master, means execution by slicing the criminal into 10,000 cuts. Foreigners who have witnessed it say it is too horrible to recite.

It is under such slave laws as these that the young girl is trained as a brothel slave before she is brought to California. After such tuition, it seems hardly credible that girls do, in San Francisco, dare to escape from their masters, and flee to the missions for protection. Governor C.C. Smith, who was for years the Registrar General of Hong Kong, previous to being knighted and sent to Singapore as Governor of the Straits Settlements, replied to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in reference to the freedom of prostitutes, “out of an experience of over a quarter of a century”:

“There are no restrictive regulations on the part of the Government which go to prevent or interfere with the entire freedom of the inmates of brothels, and they can go abroad alone. This statement will not, I hope, deceive you into believing that as a consequence they are really free agents ... such is actually not the case. A child who strikes its parent is liable to a death sentence. The girls in brothels are in the position of daughters to the keepers, and ... call them mother. There is no sense of freedom, as we understand the term, possible in such a state of affairs. The women are fearful of the unknown; of what should happen to them if they should disobey their pocket-mothers, and are terribly ignorant of everything connected with the Government under which they nominally live. It is out of the question to educate them up to the English standard of liberty of the subject. They stay but a few short years in an English Colony, seeing nothing but the worst phases of a life of vice and immorality, and only know of the officers of Government as 'foreign devils' or 'barbarians'.”

This is all only too true as regards California also, excepting that the experiment of educating them by just treatment in the “English standard of the liberty of the subject,” has certainly never been tried either in Singapore or America. The brothel keepers, however, have learned to understand that matter of “liberty of the subject” only too well, and take advantage of the habeas corpus act at every turn to capture a slave who is trying to escape their clutches.

These words of Governor Smith should be borne in mind and brought to attention every time our law officers in California put brothel girls through the farce of asking them if they are desirous of liberty, and when they say no, proclaim triumphantly to the world that “there isn't a slave girl in Chinatown.” These officers deceive others by these falsehoods, but they know too well the conditions to be themselves deceived.

When certain Chinese girls appeared before a committee appointed to investigate conditions at San Francisco, the members of the committee were put under promise not to divulge their names or stories, as “their lives would not be safe for five years to come,” if the brothel-keepers and their former owners knew that they had informed against them. It is a little difficult to describe the various secret societies of Chinatown in full, but for practical purposes and as relates to the welfare of Chinese women, it may be said that the secret society, or tong, is a sort of mutual benefit society and has generally a very commendable sort of name; but it exists to divide the profits of the trade in women, among other villainies. When anyone gives any evidence against such a society, or informs a rescue worker where a girl will be found who desires her liberty, then some one from the tong that has a special interest in the profits of that girl's slavery, deposits a sum of money in a place mutually arranged for, and the highbinder society undertakes for the sum paid to see that the informer is assassinated within twenty-four hours. That is the length of time usually claimed for the act. But sometimes years may pass before the marked victim can be traced and killed.

We will next give a few cases from the records of the Presbyterian and Methodist Mission Rescue Homes of San Francisco, which will clearly show the similarity between the state of affairs in Hong Kong and California.

Table to Contents

<< CHAPTER 15.CHAPTER 17. >>